


Saving Superman

by Howlin_the_Werewolf



Category: Superman - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Jimmy Olsen, BAMF Lois Lane, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlin_the_Werewolf/pseuds/Howlin_the_Werewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Superman fights a hopeless battle in deep space against an unbeatable enemy, his friends on earth try to get him reinforcements so he won't have to fight alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Superman

Lex Luthor stood over the restrained body of the Martian Manhunter in a lead lined laboratory in Lexcorp Tower.    
  
"There's something that's been puzzling me, alien," said Luthor as he leaned over the table that held the last survivor of Mars.  "Between the Kryptonians, the Thanagarians, the Oans, your own people, and dozens of other examples of alien species earth has encountered throughout the last decade or so, I can't help but notice a pattern to intelligent life in the known universe.  Humans from earth are the weakest, slowest, dumbest, and shortest lived species we've ever encountered."    
  
J'onn J'onzz looked like he was about to make a snide remark, but a jolt of electricity from the restraining devices silenced him before he could fully open his mouth.    
  
"Oh yes," said Lex smiling.  "We have our outliers.  The Flash can run circles around our Kryptonian betters.  Plastic Man outshapeshifts you, Martian.  And of course, there is myself, routinely winning battles of wit and intelligence with the 12th level intellect Braniac.  But those are outliers.    
  
"Your people and mine were raised in the same solar system.  Not even right next door by galactic standards, but perhaps the next room over in the same house.  Yet you fit the pattern in a way humanity doesn't.  Why?"    
  
Now given leave to speak, the Martian Manhunter had no desire to indulge the evil genius' curiosity.  "I don't know."  The he screamed as the energy circulating through his body from the restraints returned a thousandfold.    
  
"What do you think of my attempt to duplicate Darkseid's agony matrix?" asked Lex smugly.  "Does it stand up to the original?  Be honest, I can take constructive criticism." 

 

* * *

 

Deep in space, at the edge of the visible universe, the Man of Steel faced down a horror intent on ending all life.  It would be almost routine at this point, were it not for one peculiarity. He wasn't holding back.  Superman knew what exertion felt like.  Every time Lex Luthor doused him with red sunlight, or he had to push through the pain of kryptonite, Superman had learned what it meant to push his body past its breaking point.  This was the first time he had done so in the fullness of his power.    
  
Moving with such speed as to appear in a thousand places at once, Superman unleashed punches with the force of supernovas on the ever advancing wall of death that was his opponent.  Joining him was a legion of superman-robots that often served him in his Fortress of Solitude, each wielding a weapon Kal-El had confiscated from the most dangerous beings in the known universe.  Superman and his robot legion battled across dozens of solar systems at once.  In systems where it was possible, the Last Son of Krypton hurled himself through the heart of the sun to gain a boost to his power.    
  
Wherever Superman stood, the enemy could not advance, but it was vast and powerful, consuming worlds wherever Superman was not there to stand in its way.  With each destroyed solar system, Superman reached deeper inside, redoubled his will and resolve, fought harder than he'd thought possible.    
  
In his mind, through the psychic barriers he'd erected with the aid of the Martian Manhunter, Superman heard the thing from beyond creation taunting him with a psychic impact strong enough to have driven back the Green Lantern Corps when they'd come to assist him.    
  
"YOU ONLY DELAY MY MARCH, LAST OF THE KRYPTONIANS.  YOUR PEOPLE AS A WHOLE MIGHT HAVE STOPPED IT, BUT YOU ARE ALONE.  NO ONE ELSE IN THIS UNIVERSE CAN EVEN STAND IN MY PRESENCE.  THIS UNIVERSE WILL END AND YOU WILL DIE OF EXHAUSTION IN DEEP SPACE, KNOWING THAT YOU HAVE FAILED." 

 

* * *

  
  
"In nature, it's rare to find two species so mismatched so close to eachother," declared Lex Luthor to his captive audience.  "Survival of the fittest dictates that your kind should have obliterated us long before the cataclysm that doomed your world.  There's certainly nothing we could have done to stop it."    
  
The sounds of a struggle could he heard outside the room.  Lex turned in surprise to see Lois Lane standing over the unconscious body of a Lexcorp guard as the door opened.  She was aiming a taser right at him.  Behind her Jimmy Olsen clutched his camera, akward and uncertain, but following Lois into danger.    
  
"Let him go, Luthor," demanded Lois.    
  
"Miss Lane, always a pleasure," said Lex.    
  
"Can it Luthor," shot Lois.  "Either you shut down those restraints and let him go, or I will."  
  
"Consider your actions carefully, Miss Lane.  Superman's run off to the edge of the universe.  He won't be coming to save you if you get in over your head."    
  
"No," she agreed.  "I'm coming to save him."  Then she shot Lex Luthor.  He called out in pain, and collapsed, smoke still coming off his body where small patches of skin had smoldered from the high voltage taser.  He'd live, but he wouldn't be coming around any time soon.    
  
"Are you okay, J'onn?" asked Lois as she worked the controls to release the Martian Manhunter.    
  
"No," admitted J'onn.  "But I will recover.  What has happened?"    
  
"Superman's in trouble," said Lois.  "He's losing a fight to a powerful enemy that's eating solar systems.  We can't get backup to him because the entity is sending out a psychic assault that cripples or controls anyone who gets too close.  We need you to shield the League's minds so they can get in close and back him up."    
  
Quickly shuffling through Lois' mind to fill in the details, the Martian Manhunter declared, "It won't be enough."  He then ran over to a bank of computers in the room.  Lexcorp might have the resources he'd need.    
  
"What are you doing?  Superman needs help!" declared Jimmy Olsen.    
  
"As the last of the Martian people, I am also the last of us to carry a shameful secret.  We are the reason Superman has to fight this foe alone."    
  
"He won't have to fight alone if you help him!" snapped Lios.  "The Justice League and the Green Lantern Corps are coordinating their efforts.  The only thing they need is you to shield their minds and we can get him backup.  This isn't hopeless, J'onn!"    
  
"I've seen the scale of the threat in your mind, even if you did not understand it," said the Martian Manhunter sadly as he continued to work on the computer terminal.  "The Kryptonians weren't all like him, you know.  They were an arrogant and proud warrior race, on the verge of conquering the galaxy once.  It took a grand alliance of nearly every sentient being to stop them.  Over the course of the war, we'd found a handful of weaknesses, all of which we incorporated into the world that was to be their prison.  Orbiting a red stun, with a core of Kryptonite, the planet was designed to explode as a fail-safe if they ever developed the technology to escape.    
  
"The Martians were responsible for destroying Superman's people?" asked Jimmy in disbelief.    
  
"Among others who contributed to the effort," admitted J'onn.  "And that isn't the end of our sins." 

 

* * *

  
"This battle will prove the end of Superman."    
  
Those were the words Doctor Fate had spoken before he'd left earth to face the threat at the edge of the universe.  Carrying the weight of predestination, Superman had gone willingly to his death.  He just had to keep fighting, keep delaying the advance in the grim hope that by the time his life was spent, he'd have finally bought enough time for someone else to find a way to end the threat.    
  
"WERE ALL THOSE YEARS PULLING CATS OUT OF TREES WORTH IT?" demanded the mocking psychic presence of the force Superman battled.  "WERE THOSE CHARITY EVENTS AND GRADE SCHOOL APPEARANCES A BETTER USE OF YOUR TIME THAN IMPROVING YOUR ABILITIES AND BUILDING YOUR ARSENAL WOULD HAVE BEEN?"    
  
The enemy was trying to make him doubt himself.  Sap his will to fight.  Weaken his resolve and crush his mind.  It wouldn't be that easy.  Determined not to stop fighting until his body was pulverized into dust, Superman spoke in a voice only someone with his super hearing could expect to hear over the din of the cosmic battle unfolding around him.  To remind himself who he was and why he would never give in to despair when people were counting on him.    
  
"What kind of man would I be if I ignored people who needed my help to build a bigger gun?  How could I live with myself if I prioritized making myself a bigger threat over making other people's lives better?  I don't regret the way I've lived my life.  And if that means I'll die stopping you, so be it!"    
  
"BUT YOU CAN'T STOP ME, KRYPTONIAN, ONLY SLOW MY ADVANCE.  NOW ALL THOSE PEOPLE YOU PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT WILL DIE BECAUSE YOU WASTED TIME THAT COULD HAVE BEEN USED PREPARING.  NOW, IN THE END, THE UNIVERSE DIES BECAUSE OF YOUR MISTAKE, AND YOU CAN'T BRING YOURSELF TO REGRET WHAT HAS BROUGHT IT TO THIS POINT." 

 

* * *

  
"I think Luthor suspected what we had done to the human race," said the Martian Manhunter as he continued to enter data into the Lexcorp mainframe.  Lois guarded the door while Jimmy Olsen focused on the alien hero.    
  
"What do we have to do with this?" asked Jimmy.    
  
"We were watching as your species approached the threshold of sapience.  We saw your genetic potential.  Humankind would have been more powerful than even the Kryptonians had been, a potentially unstoppable threat to the entire universe.  So we intervened.  Using gene manipulation technology, we installed a set of blocks in your genome that prevented you from ever reaching your potential.  As a result, instead of the would-be conquerors of the cosmos, you became the ultimate victims of it.  A race of beings so weak you could barely survive the threats of your own planet, easily conquered by anyone so inclined."    
  
"Hey, we've driven off alien invasions before.  And not all of them because you or Superman were here to protect us," protested Jimmy.    
  
"True.  The limiters we built into your DNA were far from perfect.  Every so often, one of them would fail and the smallest inkling of your full potential would slip through."    
  
"What does this have to do with why you're not helping Superman?" demanded Jimmy.    
  
"The full military might of Krypton itself, at the height of its power might have stood a chance against the threat Superman now faces alone.  The Justice League and the Green Lantern Corps combined won't be enough to make a real difference."    
  
"He knows he can't win and he's still trying!" yelled Jimmy.  "Here you are, wallowing in regret while he puts everything on the line for us!  If I could make half the difference you could out there, I'd be there in a heartbeat instead of complaining about old mistakes!"    
  
"I know Jimmy.  And that's why I'm here with you, instead of out there with Superman fighting a hopeless battle." 

 

* * *

  
"YOU ARE WEAKENING.  SOON YOUR BODY WILL BE SO EXHAUSTED, EVEN IF YOU WANTED TO TURN BACK TIME AND MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO."    
  
Superman didn't like changing history.  Trying almost always ended up making things worse.  But in an emergency, he'd done it.  It's hard to argue that this didn't count as an emergency.  And it was hard to argue that it would be possible to make things worse than the ultimate end of everything in creation.  For now, he still had enough strength to turn back time and do what the being before him suggested.  Spend every moment preparing for this confrontation.  Sacrifice the voices of the people who needed him in the moment in order to save the multitudes further down the line.    
  
He'd seen versions of himself that had made the same choice.  Paralell universes where Superman had chosen to ignore the pleas of those who called out for help in favor of his own agenda.  It has broken him every time.  He'd had to shut off his conscience entirely in order to hear the thousands of pleas for help every second and choose to do nothing.  He'd become a threat, a tyrant, and worse because it was impossible to hear those cries and pretend you hadn't.    
  
Was a universe with that kind of Superman better than one that ended right here and now at the hands of this horror?  He had the power to make that choice, but did he ultimately have the right?    
  
But one thing made the choice obvious.  For reasons even his super-brain could not comprehend, this being intent on ending the world wanted him to go back and change things.  It wanted him to become stronger, colder, and harder.  And even if he didn't understand why it wanted that, Superman wasn't about to give it what it wanted.    
  
As he forced himself across the threshold, using the power that could have turned back the flow of time to instead blast away another wave of the enemy's forces, Superman made peace with his death.  He hoped that his friends would find a way to turn the tide, but if they couldn't, he knew he'd done all he could.  All that remained was to force the enemy to expend more time and effort finishing him off.    
  
Then, a point of light in the distance exploded into a familiar figure, traveling faster than the speed of light.  Jimmy Olsen punched the cosmic horror that was preparing a death blow for his pal Superman.  Then Lois Lane was there, burning away part of the creature's body with heat vision.    
  
"Am I hallucinating?" Superman asked, dazed and exhausted.    
  
Perry White, Lana Lang, his mother Martha Kent, and thousands, millions, billions of others appeared in the sky.    
  
"It's okay, Superman," said Jimmy.  "You can rest now.  We'll take it from here."    
  
The entire human race fought together against the horror from beyond creation.  On behalf of everything in the universe that had ever lived, mankind stepped up as the protector of those who could not protect themselves.  Following the example of the man who'd willingly gone to his death for the mere chance of delaying it.    
  
As Superman stared watching humanity drive back the force he no longer had the strength to stand against, the Martian Manhunter finally arrived on the scene.    
  
"What's going on J'onn?" asked Superman.    
  
"I removed the limiters my people placed on the human race.  They can now access their full potential."    
  
"How long will it last?"  
  
"It isn't something I can reverse," said the Martian Manhunter.  "The power is theirs now.  For better or worse.  Far better than letting the universe be destroyed, I think."    
  
The superman-robots were relieved by the advancing forces of humanity just as Superman himself had been.  It was now clear why the creature had tried to tempt Superman into going back in time.  It knew this was going to happen.  The Man of Steel had given the universe enough time to find a solution.  

 

* * *

  
When the cosmic horror was no more, bested by the combined might of seven billion superbeings, they all hung in space near where the Martian Manhunter supported the recovering Superman.    
  
"You saved the universe," declared Superman.  "And you saved my life.  I am so proud of each and every one of you.  What will you do now?"    
  
Advancing to the front of the pack, Jimmy Olsen spoke for the human race.  "You've spent years showing us the path, Superman.  Now that we're the ones with the power, we'll do everything we can to follow your example.  There are people all across the universe who need help.  Who need someone to stand up for them, and to show them that there's a better way.  You lit the torch of hope for us, Superman.  Now we're going to carry that torch out to where it's needed most."    
  
One by one, the people of earth vanished, traveling to where they could do the most good.  In the end, only Lios remained as she flew to Superman.    
  
"What about Luthor?" asked Superman.  "And all the other villains?"    
  
"Most of them had a change of heart when J'onn flipped the switch for them," said Lois.  "They figured out the responsibility they had and did the work on themselves so they could join us out here.  The rest, well they did have to contend with the fact that all the rest of us were just as strong as they were."  She winked at that last statement.    
  
"So this is what Doctor Fate meant," said Superman.    
  
"What?" asked Lois.    
  
"He said this battle would prove the end of Superman, and he was right.  The universe is in good hands now.  Superman isn't needed anymore."  The relief on Superman's features was so great no one present had the words to respond to it.    
  
"Superman isn't needed," Lois agreed after a moment.  "But _you_ are still _wanted_ , Clark."    
  
The pair embraced in deep space, and Clark Kent let himself be supported by the woman he loved.


End file.
